Those of you who are familiar with my LBP2 levels probably know by now that my all time favorite materials are Wood.... and that I most of the time leans towards ''The Islands'' themes from the first game.
Well, I'm a big fan of Japanese / Chinese architecture, lifestyle and artstyles.
Basically anything from the far east, ZEN, or ZEN Buddhism, ZEN gardens... you know :p

So, for LBP3 I will of course continue doing my style of levels that I have always done ( for the most part ) and at the same time, add something extra, in this case, heavy use of custom gameplay mechanics and logic.

The concept is simple, you're sent on a mission to break in a ZEN temple, a quite peaceful place but with surprises for un-expected guests. To succeed you will need both to be quick and fast on your jump and maneuvering skills, as well as begin quiet and stealthy.

For the custom gameplay part, I basically took inspiration from other games and their mechanics, and at the same time tried to think of mechanics that we haven't seen all that much in LBP so far.

I really wanted to give the player the feel of being quick and powerful, a really Ninja / Assassin feel.

All custom gameplay mechanics are done by programming the player directly using broadcast chips.

Here's the gameplay scheme so far:

Double jump:
Press X while in the air. This works even if you didn't jump at first.
This one is easy, and even tho we have seen it lots of times in LBP2 I still feel that it gives a nice extra dimension in terms of pure platforming sections.

Health:
Yes! There is a Healthbar, it won't re-generate by itself, but various heath-generating items can be found around the level.

Fall Damage:
As seen in most games today, but not LBP, if you land too hard on the ground, you will take damage or die depending on the force of the impact.
This can be prevented by performing a double jump before hitting the ground.

Stealth:
While the level won't have any real AI enemies, stealth is still a integrated feature, where enemies and other stuff that can kill you is capable of seeing / hearing you ( or not see / hear you ) as such:
- Enemies / Search-lights capable of shooting won't shoot unless they're aware of you.
- The quicker you move, the more noise you make.
- Crouching, climbing, hanging beneath ledges, out of sight will prevent you from being seen.
- [Still work in progress] Enemies and Search-lights will be distracted by decoy sound (Like the throwing-rock feature in FarCry3)
- [Still work in progress] Cloaking power-up gives you the ability to cloak thus making you invisible for everything.

Climbing:
The new climbing for Sackboy is great! I've improved it!
To give it a more Parkour / Ninja feel, I decided to go all in on the climbing:
- You can climb on ALL rough surfaces, eg. Rock, carved wood, fences etc.
- You're able to climb, not only on the front, but on the sides and the back too.
- By holding the left analog stick either left or right, while pressing X, you're able to climb around edges.
- Holding the left analog stick down while pressing L1 will make you slide down. ( But beware, fall damage still applies )
- You're able to grab onto ledges, and by pressing the left analog stick up while pressing X will make you swing up.

Combat:
What kind of Ninja / Assassin would you be if you weren't able to fight?
This is still early work-in-progress but the idea is to use the creature animation tweaker and rotator along with movers and button combinations to create a somewhat useful combat system.
Also you may get a sword.

As for now, the level will work in multiplayer, but It very well come out as a one player only level due to the logic n' stuff. We'll see.

I may need someone to test the level in the future, I'll post it somewhere :)

As for now, feedback on the idea and / or ideas I should consider would be greatly appreciated :)

Screenshots coming soon!

Lappy

12-12-2014, 02:24 PM

i like the idea, it reminds me of the game ''THIEF''. look it up, it's an amazing game when it comes to moving and sneaking around guarded places, you might get some inspirations for cool 'obstacles' in the level.

there is one thing that bothers me tho, which is;

Health:
Yes! There is a Healthbar, it won't re-generate by itself, but various heath-generating items can be found around the level.

Fall Damage:
As seen in most games today, but not LBP, if you land too hard on the ground, you will take damage or die depending on the force of the impact.
This can be prevented by performing a double jump before hitting the ground.

it might be just me, but i like a challenge. if the game is based on sneaking around, the player needs to be really punished when he/she makes a mistake, so try not to have too many health to pick up.

and as for the falling damage, i love it! it gives another factor in your level to be afraid of. it would be a shame to see it could so easily by avoided by a jump, right? just throwing out an idea here; add a ''roll'' action instead, to reduce damage when landing. [hold button [. . . ] while falling and roll the direction you are facing when hitting the floor] it will look more realistic and players can't abuse high drops so much. ofcourse this will require to disable the double-jump after a certain amount of time...

im looking forward to some screenshots, just reading about it makes me excited :p